October 2012

The kids in my neighborhood seem to like Airheads, so this will be the third year I’m giving those out. As a change this year I’m also giving out Unreal Candy, since it’s sustainably sourced and has no artificial ingredients. I have their peanut nougat bars and the peanut butter cups. We’ll see how that goes over. Judging by the density of Priuses on my block, it should be well received. In all, I have over 80 pieces of candy for what I expect will be about 35 kids ... so maybe I need a little more.

These candies go by a lot of different names: Pillow Mint, Mint Puffs, Dinner Mint and in this version, Party Mints.

The Katharine Beecher Party Mints come in a theater style box. Of course that’s probably not the most likely place to find someone eating this type of candy.

The Katherine Beecher brand dates back to the 1940s. It was founded by a real woman named Katharine Beecher who made classic candies. The brand was acquired by Pennsylvania Dutch Candies in 1974 (now known as the Warrell Corp but it retains the brands of the individual units to this day).

The mints come in three colors: pink, yellow and green and one uncolored white version. They’re sealed inside a cellophane sleeve within the box to keep them fresh.

The soft and crumbly mints are about 1/2 of an inch in diameter. They’re a crimped mint, which is what gives them their pillow shape. They’re a pretty generous size, bigger than many that I see on the counters at hostess stations at restaurants.

This particular bag was very minty. The ingredients are very simple and boast real peppermint oil in addition to sugar, corn syrup, salt, oil of peppermint, artificial colors.

The texture is smooth and there’s a slight hint of salt on the outside, which is surprising and pleasant. They crumble easily when crunched or dissolve pretty well. I happen to like pillow mints, though I’m more fond of the butter mint style (which I’ll have to seek out now). The quality was very good, they’re consistent and a nice size. But in the end, they’re, well, just mints. A nice thing to have around, especially when you have guests over for a holiday meal or party.

Astro Pops were introduced in 1963, a time of great excitement in the space race, by Nellson Candy Company in California. The design of the pop was a simple cone with three layered flavors to emulate the three stage space rocket of the time.

The shape and production technique for the pops was rather unique, as they were molded right in the wrappers and sealed at the ends with a small layer of food-grade paraffin wax. Astro Pops were discontinued in 2004 and after several years of work to both secure the rights to the product and re-innovate the production, Leaf Brand Candy got them back on shelves recently.

The style of the candy itself is a little different, as most lollipops are made from a stamped hard candy that’s usually slightly aerated before molding. This can lead to bubbles and voids. (Gourmet lollipops such as Linda’s Lollies and the Jelly Belly Lollibeans are also super-dense hard candy.)

It’s hard to eat an Astro Pop without creating a hazard. They’re already unbalanced, with a very short stick and a blunted point. Once you start licking it, the point becomes rather sharp. Add to that the stark ergonomics of consumption: it’s a hands-on pop. You can’t hold it in your mouth because it’s so bottom heavy and long (unless you clench it in your teeth, and that presents another problem because the candy style can become soft and cement your teeth together). You can’t put it down without having it stick to things because of the larger surface involved when it’s a rest (it’s not one point of contact like a sphere, instead it’s a plane/line of contact with the length of the pop).

So, all those physical things aside ... it is a fascinating confection, especially for someone like me who is a fan of Barley Sugar Candy. The flavor layers are Pineapple (top yellow), Passion Fruit (middle green) and Cherry (base red). The candy is dense and smooth with a slow dissolve. The flavor is mellow and all sweetness. Pineapple is floral, a little like strawberry with a hint of pina colada. The passion fruit layer was a little hard to distinguish, partly because it’s sandwiched between the more distinct flavor layers. It’s a little pine-like and kind of like a fruit punch. The cherry base is a little like a cough drop in that it’s syrupy and even though it’s an intense red, I didn’t have any metallic bitter aftertaste from the coloring.

The candy lasts for a long time, the density of the boiled sugar means that it’s not crunchable (like Jolly Ranchers) so you have to dissolve the whole thing, lick by lick. There’s no way, until the pop is shorter, to tuck it into your cheek and rot your teeth either.

Here’s a classic commercial from the Astro Pop heyday when they made a bunch of different flavor varieties.

What I found most amusing about this history is that the Nellson Candy Company sold the rights to the pop to Spangler Candy in 1987. A scant 9 years early Spangler made a name for itself by creating the SafeTPop, the little lollipop with the looped string for a handle instead of a stiff stick.

Overall, a fun candy but not necessarily an everyday confection nor for everyone. The version I tried is 1.5 ounces, larger than the one ounce size that may be more ubiquitous and perhaps easier to eat. It’s definitely expensive, I paid 2.99 for my little pop, something I wouldn’t plan on doing again.

Halloween is the first Holiday in Candy Season. The variety of candy is not quite as remarkable as Easter or Christmas, because most candy is just smaller sizes of single serve products for easy distribution for Halloween trick or treaters. It’s interesting to see what the new and returning products are each year.

I haven’t seen much that’s new this year, but I did visit most of the stores in my area to see what’s on the shelves, here’s my hitlist of the highlights:

HERSHEY’S
Hershey’s decided to use more neutral fall leaves theming on their packages this year instead of Halloween specific graphics. So don’t expect to find them on the sale shelves after Halloween, as they expect merchants to simply move them on to themed displays for Thanksgiving.

I’m quite fond of Chuao Chocolatier’s bars, which are made in Southern California. The packaging is spare but eye-catching and distinct. I’ve come to know the brand well enough to be able to spot a new bar on the shelf easily because of the color-coding. One that I’d been looking forward to finding is the Chuao Honeycomb 60% Cacao. The bar is a Dark Chocolate Bar with Caramelize Honey.

I was excited about this bar because Chuao used to make a fantastic item for local Whole Foods markets. It was a thick bar with large chunks of sponge candy (here they’re calling it honeycomb). I haven’t seen it in the market for several years, so I was hoping this bar would be a more widely available version.

The back of the package has a more enticing bit of marketing copy: The Honeycomb bar is a sweet bouquet of silky dark chocolate and crunchy, caramelized honey. Its pleasing layers of tropical flavors and contrasting textures seduce chocolate lovers like bees to a flower.

Chuao uses non-GMO ingredients, including the soy lecithin and the corn syrup for the honeycomb. chuao also sourced their chocolate through a project called Aguasanta Growth Initiative in Venezuela.

The bar has a wonderful decorative design for its mold. They’re changing their packaging yet again, so keep an eye out for the newer designs. Here’s a peek at the ChocoPod version. (Here’s what they looked like back in 2006 when I first tried them.) While it’s fun to look at, it is a little more problematic for portioning. The bar doesn’t break evenly around the “pod” pieces and of course it’s harder to tell how much of the bar you have eaten. (Besides all of it. That’s easy no matter the shape.)

There were a few little voids at the bottom where the mold didn’t fill properly and the same on the bottom of the bar where there were bubbles.

The bar is deep and toasty. The chocolate has a coffee note to it but is complemented by the burnt sugar flavors of the sponge candy. It’s a clean toffee note, with no hint of butter, just the scorched honeycomb. There are some hints of minerals and an earthiness to it. The honeycomb provides a little texture, though it has a bit of a crunch, it also dissolves quickly, like shards of cotton candy.

I was hoping for a bit more differentiation between the chocolate and the honeycomb, at least as far as the textures.

It’s funny that I had to go all the way to Pennsylvania to find a bar that’s made right here in California (and that I’ve been looking for in local stores). But it makes sense that Pennsylvania would be the target market, they’re the folks that make such fantastic pretzels and have innovated so much in the sweet and salty combination. I think I found the Chuao Potato Chips in Chocolate 41% Cacao bar at Wegman’s, and it was even on sale.

The bar is made from all natural ingredients, the potato chips are made with sunflower/corn and/or canola oil and this wrapper does not say anything about GMO ingredients.

This is an odd bar. I can’t quite put my finger on it. Part of it may be the inclusions. As you can see from the photo, the bits of the potato chips are quite small, I’d call them potato slivers or shards. So the texture doesn’t allow for a full bite of potato chip, but more of the flavor without the crunch. The chocolate smells milky and has a wonderful, silky melt. The chips are at once light and dense. They have a strong crunch, even for their small size. They’re salty and earthy, with a rooty, potato skin flavor to the that’s common to the kettle cooked variety of chips.

In both bars I wanted more of the inclusions ... but it’s hard to fault these bars when the chocolate is so good as well. Chuao never disappoints me with their chocolate. I think my favorite bars are still the Chinita Nibs and their Coffee and Anise bars, which are both rather hard for me to find as well.

Candyology 101 - Episode 35 - Whatchamacallit
In the latest Candyology 101 podcast, Maria and I tackled a little-celebrated candy bar, the Whatchamacallit. We’re also trying out a new format, which is a little shorter, like a handful of fun size candy bars! (more)

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Please do not use my photos without prior permission directly from me, they represent what I ate in preparation for these reviews and are not to be used for other purposes.